Creature (20)
Land (24)
Non Creature (16)
Sideboard
Maybeboard
New SOI Version!
Nissa, Gideon, and lots of Deathmist Raptors
Frontier
SCORE: 66 | 87 COMMENTS | 12001 VIEWS | IN 29 FOLDERS
This deck is now all about Evolutionary Leap. The whole deck works toward holding back creature attacks defensively, stalling the game with endless chump blockers and ensuring time to put together big enough combos. The sideboard can switch it entirely away from tokens or into a very fast aggro deck that still gets huge creatures.
This has all the best cards you'd expect in a Green/White Hardened Scales deck.
Hardened Scales, Hangarback Walker, Managorger Hydra , Avatar of the Resolute, and Dromoka's Command. I've taken it from there in my own direction with four more cards, Evolutionary Leap, Blisterpod, Murder Investigation , and Endless One .
This has become a very tight list, everything's a four-of. The mana base is perfect, you may never have to play a tapped land. There are 23 green and 11 white lands within the 24. The average converted mana cost is well under two and curves out at three, so you can play every card you draw whenever you want and start making multiple plays a turn with any four lands.
The deck is designed around Evolutionary Leap. All this deck needs is Evolutionary Leap, any creature, and three to four lands in play to keep its 'shields' up. Reliably drawing affordable replacement creatures can protect you from almost all creature threats and removal spells. The deck is designed around taking advantage of this strategy, every creature card is cheap to cast and potentially a game winning threat.
What's more fun? Dig Through Time or Evolutionary Leap? With Evolutionary Leap in play, every Blisterpod fetches two creature cards and blocks any attacking creature twice. This deck only really cares about drawing lots of creatures! This is actually cheaper then Dig Through Time in the way that you pay for it one at a time, whenever you have a spare land or need a free chump blocker. Every creature card in the library is either a Blisterpod or a must-kill threat.
Hardened Scales is a perfect fit for this deck, it permanently buffs 16 of the main decks creatures. This is a turn one play that usually makes all your creatures bigger then most opponents. Hardened Scales makes Managorger Hydra and Hangarback Walker the biggest creatures in the format.
The Average CMC is actually higher then 1.44, that's calculating Hangarback Walker's and Endless One 's as Zero cost. Being colorless and X cost, they are always affordable though, and I have actually cast them for zero a few times to win games with Hardened Scales + Managorger Hydra in play.
The basic strategy, is to play defensively until you can stabilize the battlefield. Basically the number of creature cards you have in play or in hand is more important then either players life total. Once this deck stabilizes it can always make the biggest creature threats and then start attacking into anything. There's no need for this deck to try to go any bigger then it already potentially gets. This gets both the biggest creatures and the most tokens. Every creature can be played to beat any opponent, they all scale to suit any board state. You have to play smart, and sometimes it takes a few turns, but there's usually a way to get the biggest creatures. - Murder Investigation is the newest addition. This card doesn't seem so great on its own, but it fits this decks strategy perfectly. First of all, it's a late game win condition that only costs two mana, so with any three lands you can cast this and hold a forest untapped for Evolutionary Leap. This isn't like other creature aura's, you play this on your biggest creature and hope it dies. With other auras you should expect to just get yourself 2-for-1'd, but when Murder Investigation dies you expect to get somewhere between five and a lethal number of tokens for it. How great is Murder Investigation on either a Managorger Hydra or a Managorger Hydra when you can protect it with Evolutionary Leap!?!
I'm currently making big changes to the sideboard, work in progress...
I've made recent changes to the sideboard. I've moved away from the removal cards in the side to focus on a strategy of becoming even more aggro against control, rather then trying to beat them at their own game with an inferior control deck.
4x Abzan Falconer
4x
Heir of the Wilds
4x
Servant of the Scale
3x Valorous Stance
All the sideboard creatures dodge token hate and can aggressively attack into just about anything.
Abzan Falconer lets me go over decks with a big ground presence, Ideal against huge Eldrazi, often winning the game the turn it's played. It comes in against flyers just the same, making my creatures much bigger then any natural flyers. You rarely have to use its outlast ability, but its sometimes very useful. With a Hardened Scales in play you only tap it once for a 4/5 flyer, and sometimes you just need to trigger a counter on an Avatar of the Resolute. This comes in against creature-less control as well, just to up the number of creature cards.
Servant of the Scale is way more aggressive then Blisterpod. It can often attack into anything with upside. This is also an instant speed combat trick when sacrificed to Evolutionary Leap. Along with Dromoka's Command this gives 8 ways to put counters on creatures, which seems to be enough, without wasting any card spots on dedicated counter generators.
Heir of the Wilds This could be Rot Shambler, but Heir of the Wilds is more reliable I think, it almost always trades up for an opponents card and can attack into anything. Reliably good value for two mana. Very good against control, because you can often get it past their counterspells by playing two threats a turn and then it can attack into the biggest dragon.
Valorous Stance gets the big guys, I side this in a lot. Maybe going to 3 is a mistake. Dromoka's Command is better in most situations and I figure 7 creature removal cards is as good as 8. I may end up dropping the fourth Servant of the Scale instead.
You don't want to take out any Evolutionary Leap's because it becomes even more valuable when you have fewer creatures in the library and if your adding creatures, why wouldn't you want the card that fetches creatures forever?? Actually I've never sided any out, but it may be appropriate against really fast decks.
For maximum aggro mode side in all the creatures in place of: Blisterpod and Murder Investigation . Then decide between Endless One and Hangarback Walker. Hangarback Walker is hard to give up, but it is the least aggressive. This gets really fast, there are turn four kills possible using Hardened Scales, two Servant of the Scale 's, an Avatar of the Resolute and a Dromoka's Command. Turn 5-6 wins are very likely.
I just put this here to clean up the card lists, I've considered all these cards and more, but feel free to suggest what ever cards you like.
4x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, I'd probably put four of these in the sideboard if I owned them. Part of the problem is they would require adding more plains, so that really means more fetch lands, so this would cost me about $200 for a sideboard card. I would side this in the place of Hardened Scales to combo with all the tokens and Evolutionary Leap
1x Rogue's Passage This can be good when you draw it later in a game, but drawing this early can cost you turns. It doesn't help Canopy Vista untap, and this deck needs a lot of green mana. After trying this for about dozen games it hurt me two games and helped me once in a game that I likely would have won anyways.
3x Ainok Survivalist , I wanted this to beat my friends enchantment based deck, it's synergistic enchantment/artifact removal.
3x Dragonlord Dromoka This would be perfect against a couple decks
1x Gaea's Revenge May be good against somethings
3x Terra Stomper More aggro then Dragonlord Dromoka
4x Silkwrap This was in the sideboard for a long time. I never really felt like it did a lot. This is a creature deck, so it seems smarter to beat planeswalkers and small creatures with better creatures.
4x Wildcall another Endless One , Endless One isn't really that great.
2x Hooded Hydra I keep trying to make this work, it can be awesome, but it's usually just too expensive.
1x Abzan Ascendancy I'm not willing to add another color, it would completely change up the deck
4x Den Protector I took these out when I moved away from counter producing enchantments. It can't get huge enough anymore and you don't really need the card draw anymore.
4x Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit, just doesn't preform as well as you'd think
4x Feat of Resistance Everyone else loves this card, but I don't really want it. The main deck is already strong against removal.
4x Servant of the Scale This was a must have until most recently. I like Blisterpod better now because it's gives more reliable value. Evolutionary Leap + Hardened Scales + Servant of the Scale was a fun combo.
1x Flooded Strand almost as good as wooded foothill, I'm actually running one of each.
3x From Beyond
4x Rot Shambler This should really be in the deck, but it's inconsistent. combos with everything the deck wants to do, but too often it's just a 1/1.
4x Gleam of Authority I love this card, but it's risky
4x Radiant Purge, I want this against Abzan, but I'm choosing Surge of Righteousness instead, because it hits all the Abzan color creatures, plus is what I need to stand up to Red aggro.
1x Undergrowth Champion not really what this deck wants at the top of its curve.
4x Sandsteppe Citadel on a budget
4x Blossoming Sands on a budget
4x Fertile Thicket on a budget
2x Retreat to Kazandu There are already enough enchantments
Playtest a game where you start with one Hardened Scales and any two lands in your opening hand and see how long it takes to get a few giant evasive creatures or to cover the screen with Thopters and Soldiers.
I've played this deck at four FNM's and have done really well so far. 2nd place first time out followed by three 1st place finishes! This deck features a lot of subtle synergies and combos, and its success depends greatly on how you play it. I still continue to make mistakes with it myself. My local card shop isn't the most competitive place, but I think this is playable against tier 1 decks.
+1 if you think you could win more then you lose at FNM with this deck. Comments, suggestions and whatever are welcome.
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| Top Ranked |
|
| Date added | 8 years |
| Last updated | 7 years |
| Key combos | |
| Legality | This deck is not Frontier legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 38 - 0 Rares 4 - 11 Uncommons 4 - 4 Commons |
| Cards | 60 |
| Avg. CMC | 1.44 |
| Tokens | Eldrazi Scion 1/1 C, Soldier 1/1 W, Thopter 1/1 C |
| Folders | Decks that are awesome , playtest these, origin ideas, possibilities , Not-Boring Standard, cool decks, Other Peoples' Decks., White Deck Ideas, 11, G/W Counter |
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